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Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

reuters.com

121–130 of 540 posts

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#121
post #2

> The notification, seen by Reuters, said without detail that the group violated policies on “adult sexual exploitation.” That's some bullshit right there. Spin the wheel, come up with a random charge, and ban the entire community with zero recourse and no way to appeal.

"It's a private company, they can do what they want!"

Yes. They are a private company. Yes they can do what they want. And people can critizise. It was the same with Trump and it is the same now.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#122
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fence-sitters like you are who gave them this power in the first place. Free speech is not "ban who you don't like but allow what I like." It's all or nothing.

> It's all or nothing. This is demonstrably mistaken. Look, here's an entire Wikipedia article on limits to free speech in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce... And if you're talking about the ill-defined philosopical concept of "free speech", that's also mistaken. Free speech is a subservient value in pursuit of free society; if an instance of speech would do damage to the freedoms…

> Free speech is a nuanced topic, and not as cut-and-dry as you have been led to believe.

It is, actually. Your edge cases are disingenuous (or maybe you've just misunderstood them). It's like saying killing someone is a nuanced topic. Sure, there's moral complexities with things like abortion, war, or euthanasia, but, generally speaking, killing someone is pretty black-and-white wrong.

Free speech is the same way. Let's not mince words.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#123

Facebook is a natural monopoly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly No matter how they treat users, people won't leave due to network effect. I don't believe the problem is solvable with more tech or free market. I think the only way forward is political, with laws and regulations. Long ago railroad networks, water pipes networks, and landline phone networks were private companies free to do whatever they…

Social networks come and go. There's an entire new generation of people who don't use Facebook.

It would be solvable with the free market as long as we don't allow big companies to consistently purchase their own competition.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#124

Facebook is a natural monopoly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly No matter how they treat users, people won't leave due to network effect. I don't believe the problem is solvable with more tech or free market. I think the only way forward is political, with laws and regulations. Long ago railroad networks, water pipes networks, and landline phone networks were private companies free to do whatever they…

It's much better to argue that FB is a monopoly than a natural monopoly. It's not at all obvious why FB cannot instantly die like all social media companies before. I'm not sure what inspiration is hoped by linking to Wikipedia on a fiercely discussed issue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly

> It's much better to argue that FB is a monopoly than a natural monopoly.

Many laws and public discussions related to monopolies in general, as opposed to natural monopolies, are focused on pricing. FB can argue by saying "that's not applicable because our product is free for users".

> It's not at all obvious why FB cannot instantly die like all social media companies before.

About 35% of global population use facebook at least once a month. Global population counts newborn babies, and 10-15% of adults who can't read or write.

None of the prior social media companies achieved that size of their network.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#125

Facebook is a natural monopoly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly No matter how they treat users, people won't leave due to network effect. I don't believe the problem is solvable with more tech or free market. I think the only way forward is political, with laws and regulations. Long ago railroad networks, water pipes networks, and landline phone networks were private companies free to do whatever they…

It's much better to argue that FB is a monopoly than a natural monopoly. It's not at all obvious why FB cannot instantly die like all social media companies before. I'm not sure what inspiration is hoped by linking to Wikipedia on a fiercely discussed issue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly

The question is, what is Facebook a monopoly of? If you say "social media" it's almost self-referential. Facebook's customers are advertisers. Facebook is ultimately a media company competing with other media companies for eyeballs.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#127
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay so I completely agree but I want to add something to what’s going on Half the fun of WSB is that it is enormously offensive. The foundation of the community is that a forum talking about stock investing strategies is, at its heart, really dumb. It’s harder than most people can manage to evaluate all the “DD” flying around and any advice other than playing it safe (r/investing) is stupid to take from a rando on a…

Agreed on WSB culture but.... The "real question," imo is not about how FB, discord or reddit handle WSB's culture. It's why have they all decided to act right now, just as this gamestop maneuver is happening? That is the fishy part... and it's too fishy to leave it unaddressed and talk content. Either way, this just shows why we can't have a handful of companies moderating most of the internet under a TOS regime.

Historically, reddit is most likely to move against subreddits when they cause embarrassing news articles.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#128

Are there any good decentralized message boards? Biggest question seems to be how does the community deal with spam (and spam taking a large amount of space). But other than that I could see a lot of people willing to host nodes for free.

Some people might remember Hotline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotline_Communications Independent forums might be due for a comeback as well, with modern technological amenities

Hotline! What a great piece of software. I learned to code as a teenager in a hotline group dedicated to RealBASIC. Such fond memories of that decentralized platform.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#129
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay so I completely agree but I want to add something to what’s going on Half the fun of WSB is that it is enormously offensive. The foundation of the community is that a forum talking about stock investing strategies is, at its heart, really dumb. It’s harder than most people can manage to evaluate all the “DD” flying around and any advice other than playing it safe (r/investing) is stupid to take from a rando on a…

> Half the fun of WSB is that it is enormously offensive. That's the way 4chan presented too, and it turned out that the community wasn't entirely as ironic as its members claimed. Cultures turn toxic really, really fast. And this kind of "ironic offensiveness" turns into a shield for genuine hate in a way that even long term participants don't notice until it's too late.

Not wrong. Eternal September ruins everything
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